I finally rediscovered my love of puzzles. 🧩🧩🧩

Jigsaw puzzles sit quietly on a table, always ready to entertain.

I’ve been a puzzler since childhood. Years later, I watched my own children graduate from chunky wooden puzzles to a dozen or more pieces. As my kids grew, 500 and 1000-piece puzzles returned.

Then we got cats. 🐾

For the safety of our furry family members, puzzling stopped!

Now, in a pet-free house, I bought my first puzzle at Walgreens. The poolside scene was perfect. I finished it in two days. Unfortunately, one piece was missing.

I expect a missing piece from yard sale puzzles.

🧩But brand new? 🧩

I complained to my fellow puzzlers who told me this is common.

That led me down a YouTube rabbit hole—the production of puzzles—a man counting his pieces to discover there were 204, not 200! There is a movie called Puzzle—a stay-at-home mother enters a puzzle building competition.

The company from the Netherlands that replaces missing pieces, also sent a poster-size print. No more squinting at the tiny image on the cover!

Some puzzles boast “minimal puzzle dust.” 🤔 Some interlock, others do not. Some are more difficult than expected.

Like relationships and life.

As a writer, I dug deeper. Shel Silverstein’s, The Missing Piece teaches that we are to feel whole within ourselves. How often do we search for someone or something to “complete” us?

In an interesting blog post, Dr. Jeremy Berg uses puzzle pieces and box covers as an allegory for the Christian life.

In Carol Kent’s book, When I Lay My Isaac Down, she says, “Our shattered dreams are never random. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle. A chapter in a larger story.” She goes on, “For the Christian, it’s always a necessary mile on the long journey to joy.”

Everyone has days when they feel like a piece is missing.

Let Jesus Christ be your missing piece. ❤️

On a lighter note, are you a puzzler? Or do jigsaw puzzles simply puzzle you? 😀🧩